- The pressure on being a comedian is being funny, but I've given that up, so there is no pressure whatsoever.
- [on his character from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999)] I play a nerdy, well, yeah, I'm really playing someone nerdy. That's kind of like me saying "I'm playing someone Jewish".
- [on Saturday Night Live (1975)] I was there right after the original cast left, and so back then it was like, "How dare they continue ["Saturday Night Live" (1975)] without the original cast of people?" Back then it would be like if in the middle of Beatlemania you just said, "Oh The Beatles are not John, Paul, George, and Ringo--it's Harry, Artie, Phil"--you know, it was an outrage. So before we even got on the air, they were already writing these articles: "Who the hell are these people?"
- [on his controversial jokes] I have always felt comedy and tragedy are roommates. If you look up comedy and tragedy, you will find a very old picture of two masks. One mask is tragedy. It looks like it's crying. The other mask is comedy. It looks like it's laughing. Nowadays, we would say, "How tasteless and insensitive. A comedy mask is laughing at a tragedy mask."
- In real life I'm a tall, blond Christian.
- To the public Kim Kardashian is a much bigger name than Robert De Niro.
- I only beat [my children] when I'm on crystal meth. I'm proud of that.
- I would show up at a party for Al-Queda if you said there's going to be a dinner.
- I love to go where it's a dark area. You never know what people will choose to be offended by.
- Most people are hoping that they never find anyone like me.
- [on his reluctance for about interviews] The public wants to know your bank account number, your Social Security and PIN code, too. I can't peek my head into a women's changing room and go, '"Well, I want to know, and I'm curious about this".
- [on his firing from the voice of the Aflac duck] It gives me a sentimental feeling about the old lynch mobs. At least they were social.
- [on his reaction to being passed over for a role in Dick Tracy (1990) for Dustin Hoffman] The only way our names would appear together in the same Hollywood conversation would be in the sentence, "I've seen Gilbert Gottfried's acting, and he's no Dustin Hoffman."
- I became known in certain circles as the untalented guy with the irritating voice from the worst season of Saturday Night Live (1975). It's not exactly the best nickname in the world, and it's difficult to imagine it fitting on a T-shirt. This was just as well, I always thought, because it's nice to be known in certain circles, especially concentric ones.
- I emailed Junior, the Problem Child from the Problem Child (1990) pictures, and he never emailed me back, which is the lowest insult you can get in this business . . . I don't know why he never answered, it can't be because he's busy!
- [on Silk Degrees (1994)] I remember doing one of these low-budget, direct-to-video [action movies] and it had all these people like Marc Singer and Mark Hamill. I saw a trailer for it and because nobody in it was [a big star], if you've got Tom Cruise you say "TOM CRUISE IN . . . ", but here you've got to name everybody to help it add it up to one big star. So you see helicopters exploding and girls ripping their dresses open and in the midst of it, the announcer goes "MARK HAMMIL! MARC SINGER! GILBERT GOTTFRIED!"
- I play Lincoln in [ A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) ] and I was perfect for that because a lot of people would like to shoot me.
- I still wake up like I'm in a ["The Twilight Zone" (1959)] episode; where I go, "Where am I?" "Why, you're in The White House and it's 1803, Mr. President!" And it's like, "Huh? What?"
- [on what his career would've been like had he not pursued comedy] I think, and I really seriously believe this, I think the job I would have are those jobs that Jerry Lewis would have in his movies. Like, "Jerome, watch my gas station while I go out to lunch!"
- [on Jerry Lewis] The French were right about him all along.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content